The Stainless Steel Rat's LiveJournal

The Rat who is made of Stainless Steel

RoboCop (2014). A remake of the 1987 film and directed by José Padilha. Set in the near future USA, the country has a bill in place that does not allow robots. Whereas abroad US robots are being used in military action. In Detroit, police detective Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) is investigating a crime of gun running. He discovers the guns are missing from the police inventory, and is then nearly killed by a car bomb. Murphy's wife is told by OmniCorp that the only opportunity to save him is to enrol him in the RoboCop programme, where his body will be cybernetically enhanced. This bypasses the bill preventing robots, and OmniCorp intend to use it to pave the way for the abolition of the bill. The start of RoboCop is a somewhat by-the-numbers cop drama, albeit set in the near future. There's an interesting moment or two when Murphy appears to be more at odds with his conversion, helped by present day special effects. Ultimately though the film doesn't get anywhere near capturing the charm and downright lunacy of the original film, and around halfway through seems to give up and descend into run-of-the-mill action. The film's also a bit slow in places, and perhaps could have been snappier with some fat cut from its near 2 hour running time. Those who are too young to engage with the 80s original might get more from it. As per usual I'm just frustrated that Hollywood don't take more risks with original properties. 2/5 (Poor)